November 2, 2009
In true Urban Escapes fashion, the team got together for a little Halloween pre-party. And as usual, we proved that we know how to have just as much (if not more) fun off the trail than on. There were no shortage of costumes, but the highlights definitely include Jem, ridiculous skiers, and a gang of adult babies in yes, adult diapers.
October 29, 2009
It feels like it’s never going to stop raining, huh? And the thing that annoys me the most about this weather is that I can’t ride my bike to work. I mean, I can, but then there’s the whole water-getting-into-my-laptop issue, and that’s a pretty big issue. But after a couple of days I really couldn’t take it and decided to go to EMS to see if there was some solution to this. Someone has to make a waterproof laptop bag, right?
And someone does make one. I bought a Timbuktu Laptop Messenger bag and tried it out for the first time. I couldn’t be happier. Lined with a waterproof liner, the bag is ideal for transporting your laptop in the rain. I don’t know that I would trust it in a total downpour, but I did use it yesterday and I’m quite pleased.
October 26, 2009
Okay, so we’ve totally slacked in the whole blog thing, but fear not–we’re back! I can’t promise the most beautiful prose in the world, but I can assure you that you’ll get cool gear tips and outdoor ideas, plus some insider info on what’s going on in the Urban Escapes office.
The two second update:
1. We just ran some AWESOME trips to Mexico and Costa Rica
2. Last week’s happy hour rocked with 200+ Escapers and lots of great conversations
3. Expansion is going well! We’ve already started putting together trips and are super excited about launching the new sites in the next few weeks.
Okay, that’s all for now. I’ve been out of the office for a full month (Mexico, Costa Rica, Boston…) and it’s time to get working. The highlight of my 4 weeks of “work”? Whitewater rafting on the world-famous Pacuare River in Costa Rica 
July 6, 2009
After two full weeks of rain, it was starting to feel like we weren’t going to have much of a summer at all. On Thursday afternoon, Bram and I were finalizing all of the finishing touches for the weekend, when BAM, huge thunderstorm. It was almost a joke. We had our night hike leaving in just a couple of hours and here we were, sitting in Manhattan in the middle of a huge rainstorm. People started calling, seeing if we were actually going to be doing the trip or not. But we looked at the radar and it looked like we were going to be in the clear by the time the hike was supposed to start. We stocked up on some more lighter fluid since we knew there wouldn’t be a single dry piece of wood anywhere, and off we went.
And then something happened. The sun came out. And it stayed out all weekend long! What a concept. The night hike was great–we had 30 people stomping around the woods until 1 am on Thursday night, with more s’mores and hot chocolate than Harriman State Park had seen in a long time. And that’s how the weekend started. Then we had a few more days of beautiful sunshine where we enjoyed beautiful hikes, canoe rides, and lakeside loungings. I was an engineering major, so you’ll have to forgive me for not being able to describe the beauty that we experienced this weekend. Thankfully we have flickr, so go take a look and you’ll see serene lakeside viewpoints with plenty of ‘Escapers’ basking in the sunlight.
And we finished off the weekend with the inaugural ’Shootin’ & Drinkin’, our newest baby. It was a blast! We spent the morning sporting clay shooting at a gorgeous course and finished off with an intense shoot-out between the two teams. It was close and I think we all surprised ourselves–everyone hit more than 50% of the targets! And of course, no shootin trip is complete without the drinkin’ part. The day ended at a beautiful whiskey distillery where we all enjoyed a whiskey tasting and picnic lunch.
And now it’s Monday morning and I don’t think we’ve ever been so exhausted. It was all worth it though, we had our biggest weekend yet, tried out some new trips, and all in all just had a wonderful time.
June 24, 2009
I’ve been leading the overnight whitewater rafting trip for two years now and nothing could have ever prepared me for this past weekend. I wasn’t exactly gearing up to go on Friday night. I mean, I love leading the trips, but the weather forecast was calling for heavy rain ALL WEEKEND and needless to say, rain like that doesn’t make for the most pleasant of camping experiences. But I put a smile on my face and went for it, because I knew that we had an all-star crew coming and that we’d make the most of it. Boy, did we.
The rain held off for most of the drive and we got to the trailhead with high spirits. What rain? HA. As soon as we stepped out of the van, it started pouring. And I don’t mean raining hard, I mean actually pouring. And that’s when I realized that we were going to have a blast. Everyone embraced the rain and we hiked for hours, splashing, getting muddy, and even swimming in the ice cold waterfalls!
Then the next part is the one I wasn’t ready for. It was still pouring when we got to the campground so we had to ax the campfire idea. Not sure what to do, we heard loud music coming from the other end of the campground. Now we had no idea what to expect, but it definitely surpassed everything. It was a boy scout dance party, but no one was dancing! So what do we do? We got right in there and started throwing down. In about 30 seconds all of the boy and girl scouts came to see what was going on, and within minutes we had a full-on party, with Urban Escapes at the lead. It was a blast, and we went to bed in such high spirits, albeit the fact that we were soaking wet.
And then I can’t even begin to describe the rafting. All of the rain made for the best rapids they’d had in two years. We had one raft capsize, one raft where everyone fell out, and ten very, very happy ‘Escapers’. It was just one of those weekends that will go down in Urban Escapes history.
June 15, 2009
I was sitting in the back of the Cessna this morning, riding up to make a morning skydive, when I saw the bumper sticker pasted to the inside of the plane. It said ‘live the life you love.’ I haven’t jumped in a while, so I was a little nervous about the skydive, but as soon as I read this I stopped everything and smiled. What a life motto.
And that’s how I ended my weekend: a Monday morning skydive with the words ‘live the life you love’ ringing in the background. It’s been a pretty stellar week. I came up to New Hampshire for my little brother’s college graduation and took the opportunity to enjoy this mini-roadtrip. It took some engineering, but I manged to cram my mountain bike, parachute, sleeping bag, tent, and hiking boots into the trunk of my Honda Civic. And that basically describes the past few days–morning mountain bike rides followed by hikes to the top of various ski mountains.
But the best part is that this was actually a scouting trip too. All of these activities and locations are exactly what we do at Urban Escapes, which is cool because it just reiterates that we’ve actually created a company that helps pepole live the life they love.
June 9, 2009
We hadn’t done this hike yet this season, and as soon as we finished I could only wonder why not. I think I had forgotten just how amazing some of the views are. Sure, it helped that we had a gloriously sunny day and a great group, but seriously, this hike just rose high on my list of favorites.
We started with a steep climb, which didn’t exactly spare our thigh muscles, but within the first 20 minutes we had a 270 degree view of the Hudson Valley. The day continued on like this, with lots of ups and downs, which meant a lot of those moments when you come up to the top of a hill and you’re rewarded with a view of hawks soaring just feet away from the cliff. Pretty cool stuff.
And of course, we capped off the hike with some frosty (luke-warm really, but frosty sounds better) beers. Congratulatiaons to Elliot and Lana–our two newest Silver Escapers!
At the top of Storm King Mountain
June 4, 2009
So we knew when we planned the event that it could go either way. I mean, has anyone ever tried to combine beer and pole dancing? Well, yes, obviously pole dancing always goes with beer, but not pole dancing CLASSES. Anyway, we had a hunch that it could actually be a winning combination and we were right. Last night’s happy hour was a huge success.
The party started at 8 and by 7:55 we already had a huge line to sign up. And who wouldn’t want to enter the raffle? The guys at Gore very graciously donated beautiful GORE-TEX jackets and Crunch came through with some free 6-month memberships, not to mention we gave out some free hikes and t-shirts, so of course everyone wanted to get their name on the list.
The whole thing was a blast. The beer flowed freely all night and there was a great combination of people just hanging out in the main area and people sampling the rock wall and other classes. We had about 150 Escapers show up and we’re really happy with how our happy hours have been turning out.
We’ve got a staff meeting this week and we’ll definitely think about other cool ideas for happy hours. If you’ve got one, feel free to send our way!
|
